Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Civil marriages (6,743) are now more popular than Catholic weddings. Humanist, Spiritualist Union of Ireland, and OneSpirit ceremonies are the next most popular options; only 1% of wedding ceremonies take place in the Church of Ireland (Anglican).

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M., said that “we must therefore keep the liturgy and prayer at the center of the life of our communities. Not just prayers for peace—which also need to be promoted—but prayer as a constant and enduring atmosphere of life, giving shape to our days, our weeks, our communities.”

“I am thinking in particular of the Liturgy of the Hours prayed in community, of lectio divina, of Eucharistic adoration: not practices for specialists, but simple and profound expressions of the Church’s prayer, capable of inserting our daily life—with all its fears and expectations—into a living relationship with God,” he continued. “Let us make prayer the beating heart of our parishes, our families, our schools.”

Archbishop Gänswein, Pope Benedict’s private secretary and now apostolic nuncio to three Baltic nations, denied that Pope Benedict’s resignation was linked to Vatican scandals; instead, he said, it was a result of prayer and reflection.

“The first distortion is the assertion that the just war tradition is the foundational stance toward war in Catholic teaching,” he wrote. “In reality, the fundamental stance of the Church toward war is that it must be avoided.”

“A second claim distorting the dialogue about Catholic teaching and the Iran war is the assertion that just war principles are merely a heuristic—that is, a mental shortcut or rule of thumb—rather than an objective set of stringent criteria for determining whether a war is morally legitimate in extreme circumstances,” Cardinal McElroy continued.

“A third claim about Catholic moral teaching distorting our current national dialogue is the assertion that while posing the central moral questions about a war rightfully belongs to the Church, the application of those norms and the determination of moral legitimacy to go to war belong solely to the leaders of government,” he added. “This assertion first arose concerning the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003.”

Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, said that “delegating critical decision-making processes in scientific activities to AI systems” is a “cause for deep concern, particularly in sensitive areas such as medicine, health and bioethics. While AI can assist healthcare professionals with tasks such as pattern recognition, risk stratification and decision support, decisions regarding patient treatment and the weight of responsibility they entail must always remain with the human person.”

Archbishop Balestrero called for “proper ethical management and regulatory frameworks” for AI that are “centered on the human person, rather than mere criteria of utility or efficiency.”

“In line with the principle of subsidiarity, it is essential to establish and implement adequate safeguards and to foster collaboration among stakeholders,” he added.

Stepanakert is a city in Nagorno-Karabakh, an historic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that Armenians call Artsakh.

“It is obvious that the Azerbaijani government continues to target Armenian Christian holy sites with the aim of erasing the Armenian trace from Artsakh,” the Armenian Apostolic Church said in a statement. “This state-level vandalism once again proves that Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy has not changed.”

The Armenian Apostolic Church (CNEWA profile) is among the Oriental Orthodox churches that ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451).

The bishops said that they “turn to the Lord in prayer and stand in solidarity with all those suffering from devastating violence, instability and injustice in the Holy Land, Lebanon, Iran and the wider Middle East region. In particular, we remember the Christian communities, whose presence in these lands, where our faith has its roots, remains a powerful testimony of perseverance, resilience and hope.”

The bishops also visited two Christian villages in Northern Cyprus, which has been under Turkish military occupation since 1974. At the Maronite co-cathedral in one of the villages, Archbishop Selim Sfeir preached that “we desire more than ever the full return of our villages and our places of divine worship, and we renew our firm commitment, with great determination and continuous effort, to achieve this return in a spirit of responsibility, perseverance, and cooperation.”

“Nutrition programs that support the basic right to food should be strengthened,” the signatories wrote. “We must work to ensure every person has enough nutritious food to sustain a life with dignity, promote good stewardship of the land and natural resources, and provide support to struggling farmers, ranchers, and workers.”

Among the many requests in the letter, the signatories wrote:

• “we implore Congress to fully fund WIC at no less than the same level as FY2026 (factoring inflation and WIC’s growing caseload)”
• “we also ask that you delay the newly created state cost sharing requirements for SNAP benefits and administrative expenses by one to two years”
• “please increase funding for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which funds the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the Agriculture Conservation Easement Program (ACEP)”
• “agricultural subsidies and direct payments must be targeted to small and moderate-sized farms, especially those of Black farmers and other historically marginalized groups”
• “we especially urge Congress to counteract policies that facilitate and promote access to chemical abortion through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)”

At his general audience today, Pope Leo XIV spoke about his recent apostolic journey to four African nations.

“In 2025, at least 326 humanitarian workers were killed in 21 countries, bringing the number of victims of this war against those who deliver aid to the civilian population to 1,010 in just three years,” Fides reported. “Often, death comes from the sky: airstrikes, especially in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine, are the leading cause of fatalities.”